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What is the required bandwidth for Cloud Services

Last Updated: Jan 31, 2017 03:31PM PST

Article: 1.02-kdb-0002

NLSS Cloud Services can greatly enhance a userâ€™s experience with managing multiple different sites and trying to keep user credentials and access levels organized. Further, Cloud Services facilitates simple viewing of video from remote locations with no special firewall configuration (in most cases). There are some minimum requirements, however, when it comes to bandwidth considerations.

It is important to keep in mind that IP cameras with high resolution imagers can generate streaming bitrates from tens of kilobits per second to 5 or more megabits per second. As such, IP cameras can quickly overwhelm an internet connectionâ€™s upload speed (keep in mind video is being â€œuploadedâ€� from the remote site and â€œdownloadedâ€� at the remote viewers location), resulting in a poor experience for a user trying to remotely view video.

Adding to this issue is the fact that most internet service providers will advertise their internet speeds to customers as being â€œ15Mbpsâ€� or some such speed. What they put in much smaller print is the fact that these speeds are download speeds, not upload speeds. Usually the upload speeds are small fractions of the download speed. Having 15Mbps down and only 768k up is not uncommon. Of course, the upload speed is the important part, so if youâ€™re trying to view video at a remote site and that siteâ€™s upload speeds are only 768k, then you need to plan for having reduced video quality to accommodate the low connection speed.

In this case there are a few things that can be done to accommodate the slower speeds. Most importantly, the bit rate needs to be reduced. This can be done, on most cameras, by simply lowering the bitrate, but the user needs to consider what happens when only the bitrate is reduced. Simply reducing the bit rate without also lowering the frame rate and / or the resolution means that the video quality is just going to be worst. The user should consider a combination of reduced bitrate as well as reduced frame rate and resolution.

When considering the bandwidth that should be ordered from an Internet Service Provided, consider what your average bitrate is going to be on each of your cameras and order internet accordingly.

A general rule of thumb (and most situations vary as described above) is to assume that each site should have at least 1 Megabit per second upload speed.
Transcode

One of the most important features the Next Level system has that can help with the bandwidth problem is the ability to transcode video - essentially turning high quality, high bitrate video into low bit rate lower quality video in real time - all while still preserving the original high quality high bitrate video and keeping it recorded locally. In this way, a user on a poor internet connection, or even a mobile device (3G data speeds are usually very low) can still view video remotely, even though it may not be the best quality. Transcoding video is a very compute â€œexpensiveâ€� task and depending on the model of NLSS Gateway you have, you may only be able to do one or two transcodes simultaneously. This is important to consider when selecting which type of gateway is appropriate for you situation.
Contact Information

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